Porcelain Prince
by BlueFeatheredRaven
Summary: This doll was just that; a doll. A toy. An object. Just because it looked so much like his master... That didn't mean it were any more aware of it's surroundings that it's fellow creations. This doll... was not Oz... And yet...


Another kink meme fill. It's not very well done, but it was interesting :) I was going to stop it here someone still needs to find this doll and embarrass Gilbert, so I will probably write more eventually. However, with all the other fics I have yet to catch up on I think I'll leave this one as it is for now ^_^

For anyone who's wondering, progress on my other fics is posted in my Bio. Sorry for the delay, everyone!

**O-O-O**

**Porcelain Prince**

**O-O-O**

He had only been in the Nightray House a few months when he had first seen him…

Even though Vanessa's mannerisms were far more akin to a brash young boy that a lady, she was still a young girl and, as such, she had been gifted with many, beautiful dolls over the years. Expensive porcelain people, small but heavy enough to be considered almost human, detailed enough to place the notion in one's mind that, one day, they could very well stand up and begin to move of their own accord.

Vanessa had never had much time for them, far more interested in the sports and games that her brothers were playing – a consequence to being the only female member of the family bar her mother, Gilbert assumed – and so her ball jointed children lay in a neat line along her shelves, gathering dust and staring forward with glass eyes that revealed nothing, yet appeared to hold everything.

Gilbert was no fool. He did not have to wonder the reason that one particular doll had captured his gaze the moment he had set eyes upon it from where he stood outside Vanessa's bedroom door.

A male doll… Such a rare creation to begin with, and the only one in a line of female friends. He was set at the very edge of the shelf, his side pressed against the wall as if his master were trying to hide him, his legs dangling beneath him and his body tilted in a fashion that threatened to send him tumbling from his perch to the hard, unforgiving ground below. Like his sisters, the doll was dressed in beautiful, tiny clothes that were so fine and intricately detailed that they could be placed on par with the most lavish outfits of any of the Nightray children. This doll in particular wore a beautiful, deep blue coat with gold trimmings that contrasted greatly with his pure, porcelain skin, a white shirt and trousers, a black vest, and black boots. Even his cravat was held in place with a simple golden brooch replica, which shimmered and shone almost as beautifully as the dolls soft, golden locks.

There was something eerily familiar about those vacant, emerald eyes…

He forced himself onward, back to his own room, willing himself to forget the little figure sitting quietly in his adoptive sisters bedroom.

But that night, he dreamed of his precious young master… He dreamed of the day he was rejected, and the cold, lifeless shimmer that filled his eyes when he and his servant were finally reunited after three, long days. Glass eyes, that told him nothing, but claimed to understand everything...

**O-O-O**

When Gilbert was seventeen, he passed Vanessa's room and noticed that all of her dolls had vanished. Shocked, he stopped and peered around the door, surprised to find himself hoping that they had simply been moved. What he saw was Vanessa, surrounded by boxes, into which she was placing each of her dolls. When he asked her why, she snapped at him, telling him she was far too old for dolls but that she couldn't simply discard them because they were so expensive.

"What will you do with them, then?" Gilbert asked, eyes scanning the boxes for the one doll he knew he would recognize, but the little blond doll was nowhere to be seen.

"I'll put them in the attic," she said, "so that mother can give them to her granddaughters. If she has any, that is."

Gilbert quickly counted the boxes along the ground and the dolls still laying on the floor around Vanessa. "Seven? I thought you had more."

Without raising her gaze (she always seemed torn between being amiable and cold when she spoke to Gilbert, very much like Eliot), the young girl raised a hand and pointed towards her bed. "That boy one fell when I was trying to move them. I'm just going to throw it out."

Gilbert took her indication as an open invitation, moving across the room in order to see the doll she was pointing towards. "Throw it out?" he asked as he walked, slowing to a stop when he came upon the figure. The top half of his body was completely bare, his shirt, vest, coa, and boots laying in a neat pile by his side. Gilbert knew it was ridiculous to feel for a toy, but he just couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor little thing, lying there, stripped of his beautiful clothes and sentenced to disposal. Worst of all, however, was the sight of the harsh crack along the surface of his torso, across his chest and snaking around to his spine. Gilbert reached down and took the little creation in his hands, shocked when he actually felt it's almost lifelike weight for the first time. He could almost imagine a tiny little heart beating beneath that hard, porcelain skin, something akin to muscles moving those strange looking, ball-jointed limbs. He really was like a little person…

And she was just going to throw him away?

But… that…

"It's a little damaged, and the left arm is a little stiff," he said, gently moving the arm back and forth, afraid that he would damage the doll further, "but there's nothing wrong with it. You wouldn't even notice with the clothes on."

"Dolls are supposed to be perfect," Vanessa stated simply, "otherwise, what's the point? He's broken, so he's no good."

There was something about those words that stilled Gilbert's thoughts, memories of his master once again flashing through his mind. _Broken…_

Oz was also… but…

The doll was as good as ripped from his hands and placed none too gently inside a box that was far too small for him. Gilbert had to resist the urge to reach forward and snatch it back, or to scold the girl by his side for arranging her doll so carelessly within the box. His body was curling in on itself, his head at an odd angle, threatening to break. _To break even more under the suffocating pressure_.

The lid was placed on the box and Vanessa once against dropped it onto the bed. Gilbert flinched, imagining how much the treatment would hurt the poor doll within.

If it was alive.

Which it wasn't, Gilbert had to remind himself. This doll was just that; a doll. A toy. An object.

Just because it looked so much like his master... That didn't mean it were any more aware of it's surroundings that it's fellow creations.

This doll... was not Oz...

And yet...

He wasn't entirely sure why he did it… Why he offered to take the dolls to the attic for his adoptive sister, promising to discard the blonde misfit for her. He wasn't sure why he intentionally mixed the boxes up and told himself that he could not unpack them for fear of making a mess or damaging them, just so he could place the doll in the attic along with his sisters. He also pretended not to know that he was in the only black box of the group.

But it still… felt wrong… He had no interest in dolls, not in the slightest, but after seeing them almost every day for such a long time… Well, they almost felt like people to him. Every time he passed Vanessa's room and the door was left ajar, he saw them sitting there, begging to be played with, to be spoken to. They felt… strangely alive, which was probably why it felt so wrong to simply pack them away like any other old, unwanted toy.

_Unwanted… by the one that should love him…_

That night, Gilbert lay in bed, his eyes focused on the ceiling. He had tried to sleep, but every time he shut his eyes he was haunted by images of his master being dragged down by those horrible chains, through a shimmering, purple light and into pure darkness. _He had to work harder. He had to contract Raven. He had to save his master from that darkness._

And then his mind would wander back to that damn doll…

It was cold in the attic… It had to be. Cold, and dark from within that tiny, stuffy box. Gilbert couldn't imagine how he would feel if he were one of them. If he were one of the tiny, mistreated people, cast aside and forgotten simply because they were no longer needed.

_Was it dark in Abyss? Was it cold… And damp… and lonely…?_

He would save him… He had to save him… He had to save Oz from Abyss…

When he woke the next morning, he half wondered if it had all been a dream. Surely he hadn't done something so childish and foolish… Certainly he had enough strength of mind to ignore those silly little notions that crept into his mind in the late hours of the night.

He pulled himself across the mattress and leaned over the edge of his bed, peeking underneath.

He frowned when he saw the silhouette of the black box he had snuck up to retrieve from the attic during the night. Originally, embarrassed, he had simply placed the box beneath the bed and slipped beneath the covers, trying to sleep. It proved impossible until he had rearranged the little blonde creature into a more comfortable position than the one his master had forced him into. Gilbert hadn't placed the lid back on the box either, his tired mind telling him that the blonde would be scared if he did.

With a quick glimpse towards the door to make sure it was closed, he reached down and slid the box out from beneath the bed, lifting it up and shuffling backwards so that he could set it down before him.

_"This is stupid…"_ he thought as stared at the doll, _"What would people say if they saw me? It's a doll, for goodness sake!"_He reached out and carefully lifted the damaged boy from the box, fingers sliding across smooth false skin until it reached the crack across his chest. With a frown, Gilbert folded his legs beneath him and set the doll on his left knee, inspecting the damage. It seemed far worse than it had been yesterday; it must have been caused by Vanessa's rough treatment. And had those green eyes always looked so dark and lonely? Toys should not be able to look like that...

There was no way he would be able to repair him… He didn't have the skills...

It would have been difficult to sneak such an obvious box out to the carriages without being seen, so Gilbert emptied out one of his large revolver cases and managed to fit the doll inside. Repairing his gun, he said, and no one seemed to suspect otherwise. Vincent had seemed a little suspicious of his elder brothers uptight attitude, but he said nothing.

He was just getting the doll repaired... then he could put it back in the attic and not have to worry about anyone throwing him away. He would be given as a gift to a young girl, who would love him and cherish him, and Vanessa would be none the wiser. He would feel better, knowing this, and he could stop thinking about the doll once and for all.

That had been the plan, at least...

**O-O-O**

He had probably entered and wandered around a dozen stores next to or across the street from the doll makers until he finally swallowed his pride and made his way inside, breathing a sigh of relief when he found that the store was deserted save for its owner.

He told the owner that the doll was his sister's, and that it had been damaged while she was playing with it. Not far from the truth, really, which was probably why he didn't turn into a finicky bundle of nerves as he was prone to doing when trying to tell a lie. He crossed his arms and tried to keep his eyes elsewhere as the middle-aged man turned the doll over in his hands to survey the damage, but the various beady eyes staring at him from every corner of the store made him uncomfortable. In the end, he found himself watching the man's examination, feeling tiny jolts of empathy when the doll's arm was pulled a way he felt it shouldn't, or its body held uncaringly.

_It's just a toy..._

"What are you doing?" he asked when he spotted the doll maker taking out some sort of handheld device with a tiny, sharp hook at the end and moving it towards the little doll. He blushed when the man quirked an eyebrow at his slightly panicked tone, but did not retract his question.

"If I'm going to replace the torso, I need to remove the arms, head and legs first," the man explained simply, tapping the end of the tool lightly against the doll's left knee.

Gilbert felt his right hand clench into a fist. Remove his… If he were human, that would hurt… And to simply replace a part of someone that was broken was… "Can't you just fix it?"

The man hummed doubtfully, turning the doll over in his hands once again, "If the crack weren't so deep, maybe. If you really want to keep all its original pieces I could coat it over, but it will look… rather ugly, I would have to say."

Gilbert frowned, angered by the way the man's face twisted in disgust at the thought of an imperfect doll. "As long as it's fixed, I don't care what it looks like."

"Sentimental value?"

"You could say that."

The doll maker appeared reluctant, but in the end he sighed resignedly and nodded. It felt strange, almost wrong, to simply leave the doll there, but what other option was there? It was only for a few days, anyway...

_"What is wrong with me?"_ he thought that evening, unable to get the doll out of his head, _"It's a doll... a stupid doll! Why am I so worried?"_There was a tight ball of nerves in his chest and a heavy sense of dread in the pit of his stomach whenever he realized that it was not one, but three days until he could go and retrieve the doll from the store. It frustrated him to no end that he couldn't stop thinking about it, but he just... He couldn't help it... Though he knew the owner cared for dolls in a way that others would never understand, the look he had given the little blonde upon the realization that, in the end, the doll would not be the perfect little creature he wanted it to be, reminded Gilbert far too much of the man he hated most of all, and of that one, horrible day... The man who ruined him, and condemned him to that hell...

_"It's a doll... it's not him..."_

And yet...

Gilbert eagerly returned to take the doll back three days later, unwilling to let it in the man's care a moment longer than was necessary. He knew it was stupid, and that this man was nothing like Zai Vessalius, but he just could not remove the idea from his mind once the two had been connected. He would never allow Zai to come near his master, and so, by association, he didn't want that man anywhere near that doll...

The repair was rather unsightly; the doll maker had done his best to make the different materials blend, but the dolls original skin was far paler, the repairs visible even after being painted over. But he was in one piece, and that's all that mattered. Pulling a little more money out of his pocket, Gilbert paid for a tiny, simple outfit to cover the boy's repairs, his original clothes having been tossed out by Vanessa before he had ever stumbled upon her packing her dolls.

"Thank you," Gilbert said as he took the newly-clothed doll back, unaware of the gentle smile that graced his features as he looked upon it. Even in those few short days, he had almost forgotten just how similar they looked... That soft, short, slightly ruffled blonde hair, those deep green eyes and a calming half-smile that had often graced his master's features in those quiet moments after a day of play and general merriment... He tried to tell himself that he was being foolish, but the relief he felt just holding the doll in his hands once again made him deaf to his own scolding.

"Since he has been broken before, he's going to be delicate," the man told him, "So you'll have to take good care of him and make sure he doesn't get damaged anymore."

Something twisted inside Gilbert's chest at those words, tighter and tighter, constricting his heart and throat painfully. "I will," Gilbert said distractedly, then started, "I mean… my sister will."

"Of course."

Before he had even left the store he had decided that he was not putting the doll back in the attic. He simply couldn't. Maybe it was a doll, and maybe he had lost his mind, but he didn't even care. This doll was damaged and alone and it needed to be cared for. It wasn't as though he was going to be having tea parties and dressing it up or anything, he just didn't want it left in the cold, dark, damp attic all on its own. He tried not to jostle the box he had carefully placed the doll in as he made his way back to his room upon arriving at the Nightray manor late that evening. Once there, he locked the door and carefully removed the doll from the case, sitting on the floor with his back against his bed and, once again, setting the doll upon his knee in order to inspect it.

He wasn't an idiot. From the day he had first seen the doll, he knew it's uncanny likeness to his master was what drew him to it. Looking at the little blonde now, sitting before him, content and carefree in the hands of someone who would make sure he would never be damaged again, Gilbert felt... warm. It didn't dull the pain, nor reduce his longing to see his master again, but it made him feel just that little bit closer to him, as though Abyss was not a world quite as far from his own as originally thought. As though there was a light at the end of this long, harsh tunnel, and that he could feel hope for his future, rather than dread the worst possible outcome.

The similarities, the imperfections, the treatment it suffered only to end up in the care of Gilbert Nightray... was it really all coincidence? Was it not a sign? A sign that one day, everything would be alright. That one day, Oz would return to his side, where Gilbert would be able to protect and care from him once again, and, until then, he at least had this small little doll to remind him of his master, to encourage him and...

"I bet you would be laughing if you could see me now," Gilbert muttered with an embarrassed smile, reaching down and brushing a stray particle of dust from the doll's jacket. He felt his throat constrict and his vision blurred. Swallowing hard, he blinked tears from his eyes and leaned back against the bed, staring at the ceiling and lifting the doll from his leg to hold it gently against his chest, "'You're an idiot, Gil'," he whispered, "'You're so stupid, Gil'."

He shut his eyes and took a deep, shaky breath, his fingers wrapping around the doll, but remaining gentle in their grip.

"That's what you would say to me..." he whispered to the air.

"Right... Oz?"

**O-O-O**


End file.
